Summary: berkeleyengineering
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First-generation airbags, installed in motor
vehicles until 1998, decreased the risk of death
for "average" front-seat occupants in 10 percent
of collisions; but they actually caused injury
in others, primarily women and children, in
40 percent of cases by some estimates. This,
says Berkeley ME professor Alice Agogino, is
because women were not involved in early
research, in which airbags were tested exclu-
sively on the average 5'10", 170-pound
American male.
"Discrimination is bad science," Agogino
says. "It affects how we do our research and
practice." Agogino was one of 18 members of
a National Academy of Sciences study panel
that found that pervasive discrimination
against women in the academic sciences and
engineering is chasing them out of these